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Thursday, March 9, 2017

Democrat McCarthyism hits Green's Jill Stein pictured at same table with Putin at Dec. 2015 dinner in Moscow. Democrats accuse Stein of siphoning votes from Hillary at Putin's behest. Blaming Russia for their election loss isn't working, Democrat poll numbers plummeting-Consortium News, Nat Parry. 'The two dominant parties know that Americans are hungry for alternatives, so party operatives are working overtime to discredit the only viable alternatives that exist to the status quo'.

As Matthew Rozsa explains
the thinking at Salon, “if the Stein voters in those three states had
all supported Clinton instead of Trump, the Republican candidate would
have only received 260 electoral votes – 10 shy of the minimum necessary
to become president.” So there you have it. Stein spoiled the election.
Case closed.

The problem with this analysis is its flawed logic that anyone’s
votes actually “belong” to anyone else, and further, it rests on the
false assumption that all of Stein’s voters would have naturally voted
for Clinton had the Green Party not been competing in the election.

The suggestion that smaller parties don’t have a right to compete is also deeply anti-democratic and flies in the face of international standards
for free and fair elections. Although Democrats rarely come out and
openly state their desire for the Green Party to cease to exist, they do
pointedly take issue with Green candidates competing in close
elections, with the Democratic establishment seeing the Greens’
challenge from the left as an affront that complicates their electoral
strategies.

Whether they acknowledge it or not, what Democrats seem to be
suggesting is that people who do not identify with the candidates or
positions of the Democratic Party simply should not have the option to
vote for alternative candidates or to organize oppositional parties.

But according to an agreement signed
by the United States in 1990 providing basic principles for democratic
elections, individuals have the right “to establish, in full freedom,
their own political parties or other political organizations” and
governments must provide these parties the “necessary legal guarantees
to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment
before the law and by the authorities.”

Viewed within the current context of the “new Cold War” and as part
and parcel of the Russian election-meddling allegations, the photo of
Stein is all the evidence neededby many Democrats predisposed to assume
the worst about the Green Party and its nominee.

It should be kept in mind however that Stein has never attempted to
conceal the fact that she attended this “controversial” dinner, which
was marking the RT network’s 10-year anniversary, nor that she sat at a
table with the Russian president.

In fact, following the dinner, her presidential campaign issued a press release which stated matter-of-factly, “Stein attended a dinner Thursday night, sitting at the table with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

The press release described Stein’s speech at the dinner in which she
admonished both the United States and Russia for pursuing militaristic
policies and spending too much money on a pointless arms race.

“The United States is now embarking on a $1 trillion program to
update its nuclear weaponry while we are slashing programs to fight
hunger, address homelessness, and provide economic security for our
people,” Stein said. “In Russia also, money runs short for critical
needs because of the heavy burden of military spending. Imagine how much
better off the world would be if our two nations could lead the way for
the major powers to reduce the size of our military establishments.”

Stein also posted
on Facebook that she “was in Russia to speak at an RT conference
along with many other people, including many fellow activists from the
peace movement.” While there, she shared a video message on
YouTube – recorded from Moscow’s Red Square – in which she called for
an end to militarism, and for an international order based on respect
for human rights and international law.

Neo-McCarthyism

Despite her openness about her participation in the dinner, in these
neo-McCarthyite times of wild speculation, baseless innuendo and general
anti-Russian hysteria, Democratic operatives and bloggers are raising
questions about whether the dinner is proof that Stein is actually on
the payroll of the Russian government.The insinuation is that her 2016
campaign for the presidency was intended to help throw the election in
favor of Trump,acting at the behest of Putin.

Trolling Jill Stein’s Twitter account with these sorts of accusations
has seemingly become second nature to many Democratic Party supporters,
with every tweet by Stein responded to by dozens of hostile Democrats
who continue to blame the Green Party for spoiling the election.

Typical is a response to a tweet Stein sent out on March 2 in support
of ranked choice voting. “Democrats used a runoff vote for DNC chair,
so why are they fighting runoff voting in places like CA and MN?,”
Stein tweeted.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has also promoted the Stein-as-Russian-agent
conspiracy theory, implying recently that Stein’s relative silence on
the Russian-hacking story implicates her as a Kremlin stooge.

“So everybody’s like, ‘Wow, how come this like super, super
aggressive opposition that we saw from these third-party candidates –
how come they haven’t said anything since this scandal has broken?’” Maddow said on Viceland’s Desus and Mero show on Feb. 15.

While it would certainly be interesting if Stein actually received
money from the Russian government to appear at the RT dinner, it should
be noted that in her video message from Red Square, Stein started off by
thanking Green Party supporters “for making this wonderful and
inspiring trip possible.”This is an indication from Stein that
her grassroots campaign donors paid for the trip.

It should also be pointed out that if Stein’s loyalty to America is
being called into question for attending this dinner, it would only be
fair to raise suspicions about the national loyalties of all the others
who attended the event, a guest list that included international diplomats, journalists, a former mayor of London, and senior statesmen.

But of course, these are not the targets de jure of the Democratic
Party, which has instead zeroed in on Stein and the Green Party.

A survey
last year by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs
Research reported that a full 90 percent of voters lack confidence in
the country’s political system while 70 percent said they feel
frustrated about the 2016 presidential election and 55 percent reported
feeling “helpless.” Forty percent said the two-party structure is
“seriously broken.”

Another survey taken
last summer found that 55 percent of Americans favored having an
independent or third party presidential candidate to consider on the
ballot, in addition to the two traditional party choices. Of those 29
years of age and younger, 91 percent expressed support for additional
choices.

It is an undemocratic strategy to sideline genuine competition, and
is doubly irresponsible by claiming that a political figure is working
at the behest of a foreign power– especially in these days of deepening
division and a growing neo-McCarthyism.

As an added bonus, this undemocratic strategy does not appear to be
helping the Democrats, and indeed, ever since the party decided some
time last fall to zero in on the “Russian hacking” story as their
primary line of attack, their poll numbers have plummeted.

Their favorability rating has dropped from about 50 percent just
before the electionto a current low of about 39 percent. Their
unfavorability rating is now 49 percent, the highest it’s been for three
years.

If the Democrats hope to reverse some of these trends, they might try
developing policy ideas that help Americans rather than attacking
progressives for throwing their support behind alternative parties, and
perhaps consider giving it a rest with the McCarthyite smears against
those perceived to be “Russian sympathizers.”"

"Editor’s Note:In line with this new McCarthyism, a Jan. 6 report
by the Director of National Intelligence on alleged Russian
interference in U.S. politics included a seven-page appendix, dating
from 2012, that accused RT of portraying “the US electoral process as
undemocratic.”The DNI’s “proof”included the accusation that RT had undermined
Americans’ faith in the U.S. democratic process because “RT broadcast,
hosted and advertised third-party candidate debates.”